Chris Caporale, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Chris Caporale Shawano Community High School freshman Peter Fuller swims the 500-yard freestyle, which he won with a time of 5:54.71. It was one of two events won by the Hawks against Lakeland.
Leader Photo by Chris Caporale Shawano Community High School senior Griffin Rades swims the backstroke portion of the 200-yard medley relay. The Hawks finished second, six-tenths of a second behind Lakeland.
The times are starting to drop for the Shawano Community High School boys swim team, but visiting Lakeland showed its strength with a 96-74 win Thursday in Shawano.
Just over one month ago, Lakeland defeated Shawano, 93-77.
“I see our guys getting much better, but I see Lakeland getting much better too, so we just couldn’t catch them tonight,” Shawano head coach Jeff Easter said.
The Hawks’ best performance of the night came in the final race, the 400-yard freestyle relay. Tyler Buerman, Chase Lhotka, Jeffrey Green and Griffin Rades set the best time of the year (3:41.74) in the Great Northern Conference.
Freshman Peter Fuller and Rades posted Shawano’s only individual wins; Fuller in the 500 free, by 7 seconds over Stanlee Kmiecik, and Rades the 100 breaststroke in 1:05.81, four seconds better than Tyler Teichmiller.
Shawano, which finished the dual meet season 7-3, was out-touched in the 200 medley relay to open the night. Lakeland junior Grant Gibson reached the wall 0.66 earlier than Jeffrey Green as the Thunderbirds finished in 1:47.36.
“Our medley relay was actually faster than it is was at sectionals (last year),” Easter said. “If we had swam that time tonight at sectionals last year, we would have gone to state, so that was awesome. It still wasn’t good enough to win.”
Rades finished behind Jack Garcia in the 200 individual medley by just under a second.
“We were hoping we could out-touch them in a couple more things, but we did in the 400 (free relay), which was good, and then we got out-touched in the beginning relay again,” Rades said.
Shawano will get another chance at Lakeland at the Great Northern Conference Meet on Feb. 3 before heading to sectionals.
The Hawks are feeling more confident about placing in the top two at conference and advancing swimmers to state from the Stevens Point sectional on Feb. 11.
“We’re hoping that at conference we can finally out-touch some of the other guys, and I think we might have a little more depth than them and a better chance of scoring points,” Rades said.
Easter was happy with the lineup he put in the pool Thursday.
“I think it’s a huge boost to see that their times dropped,” Easter said. “They were trying to look for that drop all season, and now we see it coming down, so that’s a confidence builder.”
Lakeland 96, Shawano 74
Top-3 finishers:
200 medley relay: 2, Shawano (Griffin Rades, Nathan Kane, James Krueger, Jeffrey Green), 1:47.36; 3, Shawano (Connor Angeli, Peter Fuller, Chase Lhotka, Tyler Buerman).
200 free: 3, Peter Fuller, 2:09.63.
200 IM: 2, Rades, 2:05.69.
50 free: 3, Kane, 24.99.
100 fly: 2, Krueger, 1:00.46.
100 free: 3, Green, 53.85.
500 free: 1, Fuller, 5:54.71; 3, Tommy Rankin, 6:44.63.
200 free relay: 2, Shawano (Lhotka, Kane, Krueger, Green), 1:39.52; 3, Shawano (T. Buerman, Braxten Surber, Fuller, Collin Buerman), 1:47.62.
100 back: 2, Krueger, 1:07.16; 3, Angeli, 1:10.77.
100 breast: 1, Rades, 1:05.81; 3, Kane, 1:10.10.
400 free relay: 1, Shawano (T. Buerman, Lhotka, Green, Rades), 3:41.74; 3, Shawano (Angeli, C. Buerman, Surber, Wylee Springborn), 4:19.02.